BY AL BARBARINO

Summit Business Media has signed an eight-year relocation and expansion for the 17,000-square-foot 10th floor at 469 Seventh Avenue, where Colliers International continues to market several full floors that include a “building-within-a-building” option for a potential anchor tenant.

Summit, a media company that caters to the insurance, financial services, legal, and investment advisory markets, is relocating from 475 Park Avenue South and will move into its new space in July.

“The tenant is growing and needed larger, high-end office space with easy access to transportation,” said Colliers International’s Eric Meyer, who exclusively represented the landlord with Martin Meyer, in a statement.

Asking rents were $47 per square foot.

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BY AL BARBARINO

A team from Cushman & Wakefield is marketing a prime retail space at 1514 Broadway currently occupied by Toys “R” Us – a move that comes in anticipation of a reported $38 million jump in rent that could give the toy store no other choice than to run from Times Square like a wronged schoolboy.

 Crain’s New York reported that “current market levels” would jump the toy store’s rent to more than $50 million when its lease is up in 2016, compared with the roughly $12 million it paid back in 2000, leaving C&W to quietly market the space at the International Council of Shopping Centers’ RECon conference this week.

“This is by far one of the most valuable retail spaces in the city to hit the market in a long time,” Glenn Rufrano, the firm’s CEO, told Crain’s. To read the full story, click here

BY J.D. PARKER

J.D. Parker is a vice president of Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services and currently oversees the firm’s five offices throughout the tristate region. His column runs every week exclusively at commercialobserver.com.


As the old adage goes, time is money.

When I first started in the investment sales brokerage business, my mentor told me I needed to get a car so that I could get to meetings faster and stay above ground to make phone calls.

I wasn’t sure I should buy a car, as I had only a few thousand dollars and student loan debt up to my eyeballs, but who was I to question my mentor? I had just moved to New York City, I was living on a friend’s couch, and my knowledge of the real estate world was limited.

With the small loan I had secured from my grandmother to float me for my first year in the business, I bought a silver 1995 Nissan Altima for $3,500. It had three hubcaps, and the air-conditioning stopped working after the first week. It was May 2004 and the heat was just arriving for what was to be my first sticky summer in NYC.

It wasn’t a pretty sight, but I now had wheels and I was in the game.

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BY SCOTT SPECTOR

Scott E. Spector, AIA, is a principal at Spector Group, one of New York’s premier architecture and interior design firms and a leader in corporate tenant and building owner-based design. The award-winning company has affiliate offices nationally and internationally. To date, it has completed more than 1,500 projects. His column runs every week exclusively at commercialobserver.com.

I once heard an associate joke that “behind every good broker is an architect.”

She wasn’t too far off base.

With the many responsibilities a broker has to juggle, having another professional to call for support can be a welcome relief. The following is a list of eight great ways for brokers to utilize a commercial architect:

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